The cognitive relevance of the community structure of the functional co-activation network of the human brain

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• Nicolas Crossley, Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London
• Tuesday 04 December 2012, 11:00-12:00
• BCNI seminar room, Sir William Hardy Building, Downing Site.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Mikail Rubinov.

There has been growing interest in the complex topology of human brain functional networks, often measured using resting state functional MRI (fMRI). Here, we used a meta-analysis of the large primary literature that employed fMRI or PET to measure task-related activation (>1600 studies; 1985-2010). We estimated the similarity (Jaccard index) of the activation patterns across experimental tasks between each pair of 638 brain regions. This continuous co-activation matrix was used to build a weighted graph to characterize network topology. We found that the co-activation network was modular, with occipital, central and default mode modules predominantly co-activated by specific cognitive domains (perception, action and emotion, respectively). It also included a rich-club of hub nodes, located in parietal and prefrontal cortex and often connected over long distances, which were co-activated by a diverse range of experimental tasks. Investigating the topological role of edges between a deactivated and an activated node, we found that such competitive interactions were most frequent between nodes in different modules or between an activated rich club node and a deactivated peripheral node. Many aspects of the co-activation network were convergent with a connectivity network derived from resting state fMRI data (N=27, healthy volunteers); although the connectivity network was more parsimoniously and less centrally connected. We conclude that the community structure of human brain networks was related to cognitive function. Deactivations may play a role in flexible reconfiguration of the network according to cognitive demand, varying the integration between modules, and between the periphery and a central rich club.

This talk is part of the Brain Mapping Unit Networks Meeting and the Cambridge Connectome Consortium series.

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• BCNI seminar room, Sir William Hardy Building, Downing Site
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